I should tell you that if you love Eastern Orthodox theology, everything I have told you is taken from it. I am not using any other source; some Eastern Orthodox Christians do have problems with the Oriental Orthodox, and since you expressed a discomfort in that respect, I have restricted myself to Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodox expressions of faith. That said, I believe Lutherans, Anglicans and Roman Catholics would in general agree with the views I have expressed. If
@prodromos or
@GreekOrthodox will condescend to validate the Eastern Orthodox doctrinal compatibility of what I have said, and if
@ViaCrucis likewise feels moved to evaluate what I have said from a Lutheran perspective, I should assume and hope that they would conclude I have not made any major errors or omissions.
No, none at all, because Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son and Word of God. He is one person, with one hypostasis, in which are united without change, confusion or separation the uncreated divine nature and the created human nature.
I do see a confusion in your position however; you readily accept the correct, Orthodox view of Theopaschitism, yet for some reason you seem to struggle with the idea that the Word of God and Jesus Christ are one person. Christ put on our created humanity by being born of the Virgin Mary; but He himself was not created, having been begotten of the Father before all ages.
I guess we could, but I wouldn’t do that to you. What I said was entirely a paraphrase of the Christological expressions used scripturally, by the early Church Fathers and by contemporary theologians, particularly those of the Eastern Orthodox persuasion such as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Fr. John Behr.
What I referred to as pointless to talk about was in a much earlier post, and in that case I was discussing the passage of time before the Incarnation. The reason why I described such time as pointless to talk about is because it is a foundational principle of the Nicene faith, expressed in the writings of the early Church fathers in the fourth century, that there never was a time when the Son was not; or as the Creed expresses it, our Lord was begotten of the Father before all ages. Because according to John 1:2, all things were created by Him, and since time is a thing, and since there never was a time when He was not, what I sought to express in that earlier post was that, in a sense, the concept of a period of time between when the Father begat the Son and His incarnation is actually meaningless, because He is begotten “before all worlds”, there being no time without Him, and therefore such a duration is theologically analogous to division by zero in that meaning cannot attach to it conceptually, and therefore I did not wish to waste your time by discussing such a flawed concept.
Now, regarding my use of “paradox” and “fundamental mystery” (I did not say fundamentalist mystery; I am not a fundamentalist Christian and I would assume as an Anglican neither are you, and I daresay one reason why fundamentalism does not appeal to me is the lack of appreciation for the sacred and wondrous mysteries of God and His love for us) , if you might refer to my earlier post you will note what I actually said was “There is what might seem a paradox here, but this is really the fundamental mystery of the incarnation: that without change, the Creator put on Creation so that he could save His Created, because of His infinite love for us.” In other words, the apparent paradox is not so much a paradox but the very sacred mystery that lies at the heart of what Orthodox theologians tend to refer to as “the economy of salvation”, which the hymn Ho Monogenes I quoted alludes to, which is that the Creator of everything is so full of love that He, through His omnipotence, humbled Himself to the most extreme extent possible, by taking onto Himself our fallen nature and restoring it through His passion and resurrection. And in asserting this, I am not seeking to wrap a personal opinion in a pious statement everyone agrees with. Rather, what I literally did, to try to clarify this point, was to paraphrase the creedal hymn Ho Monogenes, and the writings of St. Athanasius and other fathers; in particular, what St. Athanasius wrote in his book On the Incarnation.
Just to clarify, you were making a joke there I hope when you spoke of “communicatio idiomatum” between the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox? Because if you weren’t, if you don’t grasp the concept of the communication of idiomatic properties, then it is understandable that what I posted earlier would make no sense.
Regarding Father Peter Farrington, he is a personal friend of mine, and as for his book, it shows a compatibility between Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox doctrinal positions, in my opinion; many Eastern Orthodox laity and some bishops such as Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus do regard the Oriental Orthodox as Monophysites, but, importantly, His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch and His Beatitude Pope Theodore II of Alexandria do not regard their Oriental Orthodox counterparts Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II Karim and Pope Tawadros II, as heretics, but rather have entered into ecumenical agreements with them. This positive view is also expressed by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. Now, Fr. Peter may have made posts online which I am unfamiliar with which could not be reconciled, in my opinion, with Chalcedonian doctrine, but his book in my opinion, and this is one place where
@prodromos ,
@GreekOrthodox and
@ViaCrucis might well disagree with me, and not unreasonably, and indeed if they do not agree with me on this point I would not think any less of them, because this issue remains controversial, but it is my private opinion that Fr. Peter’s book does show a compatibility between EO and OO Christology and also explores the unpleasant history of the actual schism and what occurred. However he is also a personal friend so I am perhaps not quite a neutral reviewer.
God bless you
I am going to send you a separate PM by the way
